River Place Canyon Trail (Austin, TX) – September 2020

 This was one of the places I attempted to go while the GRC Summer Tour challenge was still going on, but when I attempted to park near the trailhead I was chased away by a police officer.  He commented the trail was only for residents of the nearby community.  Really, I didn’t see any signs which said that, nor was there anything like that online.  In fact, the city listed this as a public park which was open for all.  Since the community that it’s near is one of the “private fiefdom” HOA’s (which are so common in Austin), I’m sure that was being done to keep “deplorables” from visiting it.

 I ventured back towards the end of September, and on this day there were only a few people present.  No issues with parking nearby and walking on the trail.  There’s a sign at the entrance with a map to give you an idea of how the trail goes.  It has a length of 5.5 miles, and over 4000 steps because there’s an 800 foot elevation change.  To put that into perspective, 800 feet is over twice height of Statue of Liberty.

 Where I started the trail was primarily “downhill,” which meant it was going to be a bear on the way out.  The trail goes down, comes up a little, goes down even more, levels a bit, and then down again.  I was able to get a good view of the Hill Country when I was at the start of the trail, but soon most of that was obscured by trees.  Which is fine, because I like seeing trees.

 There’s a couple pictures of me looking down the stairs, but I don’t think it was really able to capture the elevation change.  This is a rugged and demanding trail because of the way it was designed.  It gave quite the workout, and was worth every step.  About a three-quarters of the way down there was a major (only) branch to the trail, which I figured I’d do on another trip.  I was heading for the conclusion of the main route on this trip.  Lots of good nature things to see also, including some nice hanging moss.

 The bottom of the trail is another entrance, this one by a pond (with a fountain) near the same road I started out on five miles uphill.  Knowing this was available, I’ll plan on parking here when I come back to check out the side trail.  Then came the task of hiking those same miles back on a mostly uphill journey.  I hadn’t needed to drink much of my water on the way down, but consumed a lot on the way up.  I was nearly done with the second bottle I carry with me as I emerged near where I parked.  This was a great find!  So I missed out on the points it would’ve earned me during the GRC Summer Tour challenge, but the experience of doing this was just as rewarding!